Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (often referred to simply as Borat!, and Marketed as "Borдt!") is a film starring Sacha Baron Cohen and directed by Larry Charles. It is a mockumentary comedy featuring Baron Cohen's satirical character Borat, as he travels around the United States meeting different people.
| Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan | |
|---|---|
| File:Borat movie.png | |
| Directed by | Larry Charles |
| Written by | Sacha Baron Cohen Judson Kuffel Anthony Hines Dan Mazer |
| Produced by | Monica Levinson Dan Mazer Jay Roach |
| Starring | Sacha Baron Cohen Ken Davitian Pamela Anderson |
| Cinematography | Luke Geissbuhler Anthony Hardwick |
| Edited by | Craig Alpert Peter Teschner James Thomas |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates |  November 1 2006     November 2 2006     November 3 2006  November 23 2006 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18,000,000 USD |
The film entered public release on November 1 2006 in Belgium, and by November 3 2006 it had opened in fourteen European countries as well as the United States and Canada. The film's $26.4 million opening weekend in North America is the highest in history for a film released in fewer than 1,000 cinemas.[1]
Plot synopsis
The film involves Borat leaving his home in Kazakhstan to go to the "U.S. and A." and record a documentary at the behest of the fictitious Kazakh Ministry of Information. He leaves behind his mother, wife, and the town rapist, bringing along his obese producer Azamat. Much of the movie from this point on features unstaged vignettes of Borat interviewing and interacting with Americans who believe he is an actual foreign TV personality with no understanding of American customs.
While in New York, he sees an episode of Baywatch and immediately falls in love with Pamela Anderson. Once he learns that the wife he left behind has been killed by a bear, he takes driving lessons, buys a dilapidated ice cream truck and drives (Azamat is afraid to fly for fear of a repeat of the 9/11 attacks which he believes was the work of Jews) from New York to Los Angeles to have Anderson's vagine and make her his wife.
Through the course of his trip across the country, he continues to get footage for his documentary: He meets feminists, gay pride parade participants, politicians, and black youths playing Cee-lo; disrupts a meteorologist during a live weather update, sings a contorted version of The Star-Spangled Banner at a rodeo, rents a room from Jewish innkeepers, attempts to purchase a handgun (when denied because he is not an American citizen, he purchases a bear instead), attends a high society dinner in the South (on Secession Drive), and visits an antique shop full of Confederate memorabilia.
Borat eventually gets into a heated argument with Azamat in a hotel room, which erupts into a naked fight (shown "censored" by a large moving black rectangle over Borat's penis and "testes satchel") that spills over throughout the hallways, into a crowded elevator, and ultimately into a packed ballroom.
As a result, Azamat abandons Borat, taking his passport, all of their money, and their bear. Borat's spirits are further dampened when some drunken University of South Carolina students he befriends show him the infamous "Pam and Tommy" video, revealing that she is not the virgin he thought she was. However, he renews his faith by attending a Pentecostal Christian revival meeting, where he speaks in tongues and learns to forgive Azamat and Pamela. He accompanies several church members on a bus to Los Angeles, where he finds Azamat, dressed as Oliver Hardy, whom Borat mistakes for Hitler. The two reconcile and try to track down Pamela Anderson.
He finally comes face-to-face with Anderson at an autograph-signing event at the Virgin Megastore at The Block at Orange in Orange County, where he shows her his "traditional marriage sack," and chases her around the store and into the shopping center parking lot in an attempt to make off with her, but is finally subdued by security. Afterwards, Borat then marries a prostitute he had befriended earlier in the film and goes back to Kazakhstan with his new wife. Template:Endspoiler
Public screenings
Previews
Comic-Con
The film was given a sneak preview at the 2006 Comic Con International in San Diego, California on July 21 2006. To get in, one had to present a very crude ticket printed on cardboard that was passed out to people from the ice cream truck Borat drives in the film. The film was shown at Pacific Theaters in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego. Sneak previews were also given to test audiences throughout New York City towards the end of the summer. After the screening, audience members were asked to fill out a survey listing which segments they thought were offensive, funny, or unnecessary.
Toronto International Film Festival
The film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7 2006 at the Ryerson University Theatre. Sacha Baron Cohen arrived in character as Borat in a cart pulled by women dressed as peasants. The projector broke during the movie. After attempts to fix it, including an attempt by director Michael Moore, the screening was rescheduled to the next night at the Elgin Theatre. Michael Moore was also present for the next screening, as well as Dustin Hoffman.
MySpace Black Carpet
The film was also featured as part of the MySpace Black Carpet premier promotion. On September 20 2006 the film was screened in 25 cities across the globe, with Borat making a surprise appearance at one of the screening locations. The screening was free to MySpace members and Borat made his appearance at the San Francisco screening.
SeeFilmFirst
The film also featured as part of the SeeFilmFirst campaign in the United Kingdom. This meant that at select Odeon cinemas up and down the UK, with a printed off ticket for one or two persons they could walk into the cinema and see an exclusive preview at 6.30 p.m. on 10 October 2006. There were also previews in various cinemas across the UK at 6.30 p.m. on October 24 2006 and October 25 2006. These tickets were allocated in advance and are not widely known to the general public. Considering the huge publicity, the screenings were largely empty.
New Zealand Preview
Similarly, the film was screened in the Paramount Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand on October 10 2006. Photocopied tickets were distributed publicly throughout the afternoon and a packed theatre watched an exclusive screening at 8:30 p.m.
Washington screening
The film was also shown on September 29 2006 to an audience in a Washington, D.C. theater. Borat announced the screening the day before when he had attempted to visit the White House and Embassy of Kazakhstan. Although the screening was meant for "Premier George Walter Bush," fans who printed a copy of the invitation on Borat's MySpace site were allowed into the screening. Actor Ken Davitian, who played Borat's producer and sidekick Azamat in the film, was present at the screening in character.
Deleted scenes
Several scenes that were removed from the final cut of the movie were released onto YouTube in late September. These scenes involve Borat singing a traditional Kazakh prayer, trying to do so again, being pulled over by Dallas police officers, visiting an animal shelter to get an attack dog for the sexi-time and to protect him against the jews, being in a supermarket, being in a prison, and telling a doctor which sexually transmitted diseases he has.
Junket and promotional screening
The movie was screened for members of the press on September 27 2006 at the Mann 6 in Hollywood. This was attended by press and the public. This served as the junket screening for the press day scheduled for October 20 2006. For the press day, journalists were told they had to submit their questions ahead of time so that Sacha Baron Cohen could prepare because he would be doing the press conference as the Borat character only and would not be available for interviews as Baron Cohen himself. Only two select outlets were able to videotape the press conference.[2]
German critic Tobias Kniebe stated in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he was bitten on the neck by a colleague who totally lost control laughing during the German press-screening.[3]
Scaled-back U.S. release
In late October, less than two weeks before the film's debut, Twentieth Century Fox scaled back its American release from 2,000 to 800 cinemas after marketing-survey data showed unexpectedly poor levels of audience awareness, with only 27% of respondents being aware of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan compared with percentages as high as 81% for the film's opening-weekend competitors. In addition, a movie industry analyst has said that executives feared Americans would not get the comic's Kazakhastani journalist character. The move surprised industry professionals, who could not recall such a move being made so close to a film's release.[4][5]
European Center for Antiziganism Research
A group called European Center for Antiziganism Research, which works against ziganism, negative attitudes toward gypsies (aka Roma and Sinti people), filed a complaint (PDF file, in German) with German prosecutors on October 18, 2006, based on Borat's comments about gypsies in his film. The complaint accuses him of defamation and inciting violence against an ethnic group.[6] (Volksverhetzung). As a consequence, 20th Century Fox declared that it would remove all parts referring to Roma people from trailers shown on German television as well as on the movie's website.[7]
Ban in Russia
The State Movie Commission of Russia (Goskino) has denied a public release clearance to Borat!, citing "insulting remarks toward some ethnic groups and religions" as the reason behind the decision to restrict the movie from public release.[8]
Release
Reviews
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was exceptionally well received by critics, with several having declared it one of the funniest films ever made.[9] Rotten Tomatoes classified it as one of the best-reviewed films of 2006, with an aggregate "fresh" rating of 93%[10] - a very rare feat for a comedy.
On Internet Movie Database, the movie has a rating of 8.4 out of 10 from 13,843 votes. As of November 9 2006, the movie is #136 on IMDB's Top 250 list of all-time highest-rated films, as graded by users. [1]
Box office
Audiences embraced the film, which played to sold-out crowds in many of its U.S. showings on its opening night. This led to a largely unexpected first-day gross of $9,050,000[11], wildly surpassing its competition despite having been shown on only 837 screens, far fewer than the competition which is shown on over 3,000 screens.
Over the opening weekend of the film, it unexpectedly rose to No. 1 on the weekend with a total of $26.4 million[12], beating its competitors, Flushed Away and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. The film's opening weekend's theatre average was an estimated $31,511, topping over Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith yet behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Spider-Man. [2]
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the movie was released on October 24 2006 on iTunes, and October 31 2006 in CD stores. Not included on this CD but heard in the film are "Kaleš, bre, Andjo", a Macedonian folk song, and "Uspavanka za Radmilu M" (Lullaby for Radmila M) by Goran Bregović.
Trivia
This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. |
- Most scenes in the film were unscripted and most of the characters are not actors (with the exception of Borat, Azamat, Pamela Anderson, the African American prostitute, and Borat's family members). Anderson is a good friend of Baron Cohen. [13]
- The scenes in the film that are supposed to take place in Kazakhstan were actually filmed in Romania.
- Several characters purporting to speak Kazakh are really speaking Romanian.
- Sacha Baron Cohen speaks Hebrew in the film (not Kazakh), while Ken Davitian, the actor who plays Azamat, speaks Armenian.[14] They also use several common sayings from Slavic languages. The "jagshemash!!!" greeting Borat uses to yell, is taken from Polish "Jak się masz?", Czech "Jak se máš?", "How are you?" He also says "chenquieh" [3] which is also taken from Polish ("dziękuję", meaning "thank you") and other Western Slavic languages. While presenting his house, Borat says "tishe" to his house-cow, which is taken from Polish "ciszej", "Quieter", or also from Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Bosnian, Czech and Russian "Тише/Tiše" (Tishe) meaning "quieter" or "be quiet"
- For the movie, Borat made a song called "You, Be My Wife" with Croatian keytar player Belinda.
- The hotel Borat attempts to stay at in Atlanta, GA is actually the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, TX.
- The woman who plays Borat's wife is an actual native of Kazakhstan, who had emigrated to Romania to seek improved living conditions.
- During the credits the film shows a large picture of a man who is supposed to be Kazakhstan's president. In reality it is Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev.
- In the movie, Borat has a neighbor named Nursultan Tuyakbay, this name is likely a cross between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and opposition politician Zharmakhan Tuyakbay.
References
- ^ "`Borat' Surprises With No. 1 Debut". 2006-11-08. Retrieved 2006-11-06.
- ^ "Video Press Conference: Jagshemash! Borat Speaks! Nice..." IESB.net: The Movie Reporter. 2006-10-20. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
- ^ "Ali G. ist 'Borat', Der lustigste Mann der Welt". Süddeutsche.de (website of Süddeutsche Zeitung). 2006-10-31. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - ^ "Fox scales back 'Borat' movie's opening". The Los Angeles Times. 2006-10-25. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
- ^ "American cinemas close doors on new Borat movie". Daily Mail. 2006-10-26.
- ^ Now Gypsies want Borat banned, Sydney Morning Herald, October 18, 2006
- ^ "Roma und Sinti Verbände stoppen „Zigeuner" Kampagne zu Borat" (pdf). Europäisches Zentrum für Antiziganismusforschung. 2006-10-27. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
- ^ "GosKino Equated Borat Sagdiev to Pornography". Lenta.ru. 2006-11-08.
- ^ "'Borat' just might be the funniest movie ever". Minneapolis Star Tribune. 2006-11-02. Retrieved 2006-11-05.
- ^ "Borat movie reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2006-11-05.
- ^ "'Borat' Goes Wild - #1 on Friday Night". Fox News. 2006-11-04. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
- ^ "Borat Shocks Hollywood". Entertainment Weekly. 2006-11-05. Retrieved 2006-11-07.
- ^ "Pam was in on 'Borat' joke". New York Post. 2006-11-08. Retrieved 2006-11-09.
- ^ "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan". IMDB. Retrieved 2006-11-09.
External links
- Official Borat site
- Official movie site
- Borat at IMDb
- Borat's page at MySpace
- Sacha Baron Cohen Website
- Borat sound quotes soundboard
- List of locations used in the movie
- Reviews
- Trailers
- Video Press Conference: Jagshemash! Borat Speaks! Nice..., by Robert Sanchez, Friday, 20 October 2006,
22 minute video conference in three clips:
- News